THE ENCOUNTER AT THE BROOK.

The head of the speaker, crowned by an old straw hat, rose above a clump of alders on the opposite bank of the stream. His coatless shoulders, over one of which ran a single suspender, likewise could be seen. He wore no collar, and his shirt was open at the throat, exposing a hairy bit of chest. A “peeled” fishing pole, projecting upward beside him, betrayed the purpose of his visit to the brook at that early hour.

Somewhat less than twenty years of age, he was not a prepossessing looking fellow as he glared angrily at the surprised fishermen, who returned his gaze in silence, seemingly stricken dumb for the moment by his startling and unwelcome appearance.

“Say, you fellers,” again called the stranger in that challenging, threatening tone of anger, “what business you got fishing in this here brook? You’ll git into trouble, trespassin’ on private property.”

“Jug-jug-jingoes!” breathed Springer. “He gave me a start.”

“Is this brook private property?” asked Grant coolly.

“Is it?” snapped the fellow on the opposite side. “Of course ’tis. Everything’s private property ’round here. S’pose this land ain’t owned by nobody? You ought to know better’n that. Who be you, anyhow?”

“We’re camping near by on the lake,” explained Rod, maintaining his unruffled manner, “and we were not told that the streams running into this lake were closed by law.”

“They don’t haf to be closed by law, and I guess you know it, too,” was the retort. “Any man has got a right to keep trespassers off his property.”

“Do you own this brook?”

“My old man owns it, and that’s the same thing. We don’t ’low nobody but ourselves to fish it.”

“Have you posted signs, warning trespassers to keep off?” questioned Rodney. “We didn’t see any.”

“Nun-nary one,” put in Phil.

“If you had,” flung back the angry fellow, “I don’t s’pose you’d paid no ’tention to them, or else you’d ripped ’em down.”

“But you haven’t put up any such signs?” persisted Grant.

“That don’t make no difference at all,” declared the stranger, coming out from behind the alders and revealing a lean, muscular figure, with slightly stooped shoulders. “You hadn’t no right to fish here till you found out.”

“We were told we could fish anywhere on the lake or around it.”

“Who told ye that?”

“Herman Duckelstein.”

“That thick-headed old Dutchman? He don’t know nothin’. I’ve had to near punch the head off his pie-faced boy to keep him in his place.”

With calm, keen eyes the Texan took the measure of the arrogant stranger, betraying no symptom of alarm, a fact which seemed to increase the fellow’s irritation.

“So you near punched the head off Carl Duckelstein, did you?” said Grant, with a touch of scorn. “And I opine you’re two or three years older than he, while it’s right plain you’re much taller and stronger. You ought to be mighty proud of that performance. What’s your name?”

The eyes of the chap on the opposite bank glared still more fiercely, and his lips, drawn back a little, revealed some uneven snags in crying need of a toothbrush.

“That ain’t none of your business,” he retorted; “but I don’t mind tellin’ ye it’s Simpson—Jim Simpson. My father, Hank Simpson, owns this strip of land, sixty-three acres, running from the lake back to the main road, and we don’t propose to have no trespassers on it. Understand that. What fish there is in this brook we want for ourselves.”

“Where does your land begin? Where is the boundary on this side toward Pleasant Point?”

“That ain’t none of your business, either. Think I’m going to bother to tell you where the bound’ries are? You’re on our property, and you want to get off and stay off, I tell ye that. If ye don’t——” He lifted his clenched fist in a threatening gesture.

“Regular sus-scrapper, isn’t he?” chuckled Springer, who, stimulated by his companion’s example, had become outwardly cool and undisturbed.

As far as Rod was concerned, this calmness was all outward seeming, for beneath the surface his naturally belligerent disposition had been aroused by the threatening truculence and insolence of young Simpson.

“If you don’t tell us where your boundary line is,” said Rod, in that quiet way which Simpson mistook for timidity, “how are we going to know when we’re trespassing? We’re camping on Pleasant Point, and——”

“If you don’t come over this way you won’t do no trespassin’, and you’ll be likely to save yourselves a lot of trouble.”

“But what if we do come this way? What sort of trouble will we get into?”

“You’ll get your heads everlastingly lammed off your shoulders, that’s what,” snarled Jim Simpson.

“You seem to consider it your specialty to lam folks’ heads off their shoulders. I’ve seen a heap of pugnacious parties like you before this, and I’ve always observed that if they were persevering enough they eventually succeeded in getting a lamming themselves.”

“What’s that?” shouted the fellow, dropping his fishing pole and starting forward into the brook until the water rose round the ankles of the long-legged boots into which his trousers were tucked. “What’re you doin’, making fightin’ talk to me? If you be, by heck, I’ll come over there and hand you one right on the kisser!”

“You’d better stay where you are, I reckon,” returned Rodney in continued calmness. “I’m not looking for a scrap, having learned by observation that the gent who prances round with a chip on his shoulder sure gets it knocked off by a better chap some day.”

“Gee whiz!” hissed Springer. “He’s gug-going to come over! It looks like a mix-up.”

“If he picks up a fight, leave him to me,” said Rodney, in a low tone. “We’re not hunting for trouble, but I admit this gent’s deportment is right displeasing to me, and I don’t think it advisable to let him browbeat us or drive us away like frightened sheep.”

Picking the shallow places, Jim Simpson waded the brook, maintaining a fierce and threatening manner, though possibly he was somewhat surprised by the lack of alarm evinced in the bearing of the young campers.

“You’ll find there ain’t no fooling about this business,” he declared, as he emerged from the water and paused a few feet distant, beginning to roll up his shirt sleeves. “You better skedaddle before I pitch into ye. I don’t want to hurt ye, but——”

“That’s right kind of you,” scoffed Rod. “I opined by your remarks that you were yearning to hand us a sample lamming. If we had been properly warned in advance, or had seen ‘No trespassing’ signs hereabouts, we might not have fished in this brook.”

Simpson seemed to interpret this as a concession or symptom of backing down, and it made him still more arrogant in his manner.

“I told ye you’d better skedaddle, to start with, but you was chumps enough to stand and argue with me, and you even handed me some sass. I won’t take sass from nobody like you, by heck! Now you’ve got jest about ten seconds to pick up and hiper. Dig, I tell ye—dig out!”

“We’re no diggers,” returned the Texan, whose eyes had swiftly taken cognizance of the immediate footing, that he might not stumble over any obstruction upon the ground in the encounter which seemed unavertible save by retreat. He had passed his rod to Springer, in order that his hands might be free.

“There’ll be some doings,” Phil whispered to himself, “when Mr. Simpson attempts to put his bub-brand on this Texas maverick.”

Phil knew Rod’s nature—knew that he was a quiet, peaceful chap, who never sought trouble and usually tried to avoid it when he could without positive loss of self-respect. Furthermore, Phil was aware by observation that, when aroused through physical violence, the boy from Texas, having a fiery temper, was a most formidable and dangerous antagonist.

Well aware of his own volcanic nature when provoked or aroused, since coming to Oakdale, it had been Rodney Grant’s constant purpose to hold himself in check and master the fighting strain in his blood. In this he had succeeded at first only by avoiding violent clashes of any sort, which had, for the time being, given him among the Oakdale lads the reputation of being something of a coward. In the end, however, circumstances and events had conspired to reveal their mistake of judgment, and had led them to acknowledge Rodney as a thoroughbred in whose veins there was not one craven drop.

Feeling certain he knew quite well what would happen to Simpson if the fellow attacked Rod, Phil believed it a duty to give him fair warning.

“Sus-say, look a’ here,” he cried, pointing a finger at the pugnacious rustic, “if you don’t want to get the worst lul-licking you ever had, you better keep away from this fellow. He’ll pup-punch the packing out of you in just about two jabs.”

“Ho! ho! Is that so!” mocked Simpson. “Why, I can wallop the both of you, and not half try. I’ll learn ye to fish in our brook! So that’s what ye ketched, is it?” he went on, his eye falling on the contents of the basket, at sight of which he became still more enraged. “Well, you won’t take any of them to your old camp.” With a sudden swing of his heavy boot, he kicked the basket over and sent the fish flying toward the water, some of them falling into it.

A moment later, as Springer scrambled frantically to recover as many of those fish as possible, Grant, moving like lightning, seized Simpson by the neck and a convenient part of his trousers and pitched him sprawling into the brook.